


Chasing Rainbows

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Character, Blindness, Café, Disability, Engagement, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Guide Dog, Healer Hermione, Severus lives, bisexual hermione, stubborn Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22148713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: “I would rather be dead”, muttered Draco.Disability can change everything. How you see yourself, how you live, and most of all how others see you. And it’s Hermione’s job to help people just like him adapt to what their life can be now.Falling in love is not part of either of their plans, but sometimes you have to chase the rainbow through the rain.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	Chasing Rainbows

  
I would rather be dead,” muttered Draco. His pale blue-grey eyes were both sharp and dull at the same time.He was sitting on a hospital bed in St Mungos. His long pale hair was lank and greasy as if it had not been washed for days. Which truth be told that may have been the case. Hermione sat on the edge of Draco’s hospital bed.

She said, ”That’s surely not the case”.

He said, ”Well, it is the truth.”

Hermione said, ”Draco... They aren't locking you up they simply want you to learn the muggle method to get around because it's the safest way. The best way, at least when it comes to this disability.”

Draco snarled, ”Surely there has to be a magical way. Isn't there?”

She said, ”Your not Alabaster Moody, Draco.Your eyes don’t work properly, because of your brain damage. It can’t process the information your eyes take in. You need to learn how to get around, safely. You cannot be in the hospital for the rest of your life Auror Malfoy. You have to learn to live the way you are, this is your new normal.”

Hermione patted her small hand on his blanket-covered leg. She knew that Draco could not see it, all he could see was a small visual field straight in front of him, and that was quite blurry. But she hoped it would comfort him.

Instead, he snarled, not unlike Snape has during the time he had spent under her care in St Mungos. Her former professor needed his regular treatments to help with his damaged immune system from the venom, which had nearly taken his life.

Draco said, “What if I don’t want a “new normal”. Huh? What if I want things exactly as they once were? Surely there is some form of magic that can help me. You are just too stupid to know what it is.”

Hermione said, ”Malfoy I am taking you to the training center on Tuesday. It is a visit if you are not happy with what they have to offer I will take you home. To the manor where your parents live. Then when you change your mind, if you ever do, I will be there to support you to navigate the muggle world, or whoever else is learning about the muggle rehab services.

Stop acting like a spoiled little boy, Malfoy. This is your new life. You have to learn how to live within it. Either in the magical world with muggle training or without it. But, from where I stand you will have a piss poor life without it.”

Draco yelled at her, ”Leave me alone, you stupid muggleborn twat!”

Hermione’s colleague, Anna another muggleborn witch, who had started at St Mungo's around the same time she had said, “You surely have your hands full with that one, Granger.”

She said, “Yeah I do, and to think he’s actually better behaved now than when I knew him in school.”

Anna asked, “What do you mean?”

Hermione said, “I shouldn’t share patient information, but this really isn’t that. You see old Malfoy would have called me a mudblood or some other horrid word even if he wasn’t angry.

The person he’s become, even at his worst, doesn’t use words like that. He’s going through a rather tough time, though. Everything he’s ever known is ever so slightly different. He’s got to adapt to it, but to do that he also has to learn a totally new skill set. But, I will say he just needs time. Like every other person who ever been in his shoes before he has.”

Her friend said to her, “You sound like you have dealt with this before.”

Hermione answered, ”I have, quite a few times actually.”

Anna asked her, ”Why are you willing to work with people with chronic health issues? Snape, Malfoy, Nott, and Fred Weasley?”

She answered, ”Because their world is turned upside down, they have to adapt to a ”new normal”. Not unlike what we did when first joined the wizarding world. Beyond that, I like helping people, that's why I became a healer in the first place. Most people want to only help people who they feel that they could fix. The people I choose to work with might never, are unlikely to ever get better. They will get better in the sense that they will adapt. And those moments are what I love.”

The other healer asked, ”Do you think Malfoy is going to be one of your success cases?”

Hermione said, ”I would bet my very life he is going to be. He's too much of a Slytherin not to. They make us Gryffindors seem passive to the ways of the world at times. They aren't going to simply to stop living, even if they want to. They have too much determination for such a thing.”

Anna said, ”I will give you that, at the very least.”

****************************

Hermione and the staff member at the blindness center walked with Draco giving him a tour.The red-haired tour guide was doing something that she called being a sighted guide. She talked cheerfully to both of them, though for once words made very little impression on Hermione’s mind. Draco seemed just as uninterested in the words that Judy said.

She, Hermione, could not help but stare at the little tuffs of white-blonde hair that curled at the nape of Draco’s neck. She wanted to reach out to smooth them down, though she knew quite well that she should not. She had been doing this job since she finished her healer training. She knew how to be professional, but Malfoy seemed to bring out the worst in her when he spoke to her rudely, but also these odd feelings when he did not.

When he was kind to her or when he was quiet, the feeling in her stomach was quite strange. She sometimes caught herself turning bright red in the mirror without her knowing exactly why.

The truth was Hermione Jean Granger liked Draco Lucius Malfoy. And she knew she should not. Her job was to help him get on his feet, help him adapt to his disability/condition, but most of all stay professional, which was one of the hardest things to do for her at the moment. 

It had been easy with Snape to be professional. The man clearly hated her. He did not dare to hide such feelings. He yelled at her quite regularly. She knew why he did that. Severus Snape expected to die that day, and instead, he was still alive. With a chronic somewhat disabling health condition. They had learned to tolerate each other enough so he could get the help he needed.

The treatments for his autoimmune disease caused by the venom, and his mental health that seemed most of the time that was on the edge of a sword tip. Waiting to fall one way or another. Hermione had done her job well when it came to Severus Snape. He came in for his treatments once a month, saw his mind healer regularly, and a therapist weekly.

If she just stuck to her guns Malfoy would the same way, and then she could step aside and help another adapt to their new normal or at least that is what Hermione hoped would happen. And that was all she could do. Shove her stupid feelings about the blonde down and continue on with her job.

********************

Hermione walked up the steps to the blindness center she was here to check on Draco. She opened the heavy wooden door, by the brass handle. She took off her wool coat and hung it on a hook, along with her scarf that was a gift from Harry.

Her brown boots with ever so slightly scuffed she stared down at them thinking she needed to polish them once she got home. She heard a soft tapping of metal against the wooden floor. She looked up and realized it was Draco, of all people.

His long blonde hair was tucked behind his pale shell-like ears. He wore black sunglasses. A green button-down shirt, dark jeans, and a pair of black leather boots.

She said softly, “Hello Draco, how have you been?”

He said, “Okay, getting around better, though I do hate stabbing myself in the stomach with my cane.My O&M instructor mentioned I am a good candidate for a guide dog, so I am starting the process to apply for one.”

Hermione smiled to herself, she had done her job, and he was moving on with his life. Her stupid wretched feelings could go to hell. Draco was moving on and that was a good thing.

Draco said to her, ”I know this is an odd question, but can I take you out for coffee or something?”

Hermione took a deep breath and made an odd noise.

He said, ”I guess I cannot?”

She shook her head and said, ”No... I want to go to a cafe with you, but I am shocked you want to go to a cafe with me.”

Draco said, ”Well I want to, Hermione, so this Saturday?”

Hermione coughed into her elbow and then nodded. Dammit, she thought, he can't see me nodding. She said, ”Yes Saturday works, how about ten am?”

The man smiled and said, ”I just recently learned the route to Marie’s it's on first street three blocks down for the corner of it and Thomas Avenue.”

She said, ”Okay, see you there.”

All she could think was that she was stupid for saying that.

As if he could read her mind before she put back on her coat and scarf, he said, ”Hermione, you can use words like see you then to me. They don't bug me and are a normal part of a conversation.”

She smiled and said, ”Thank you Draco,I can't wait to see on Saturday, and I want to hear about more about the process of getting a guide dog.”

Draco nodded, his cheeks turned a bright shade of red and he said,”I am too, Granger.”

Hermione left the training center trying not to think about how unprofessional she was being. Soon it seemed Draco’s would not be under her care, and they didn't have to tell anyone about what they were doing if they were not just friends. If it was something more than just being friends.

Friends got coffee together, regularly, or at least she did with Harry. She didn't know yet it if it was something more.

************************

Hermione got to the cafe a half-hour early, she sat in a far corner table by herself. The waiter kept bugging her asking her if she wanted to order something. She told him she was waiting for a friend. He raised his eyebrow at that comment.

To get him to leave her only she ordered a regular coffee, black. Then he left her alone to read her book and wait. All of Hermione’s life she was able to get lost in books, muggle or magical. This was a simple muggle book. Fiction, not a high-level fantasy that she normally was drawn to. Or a book on healing or spell work that took concentration, and yet she could not get lost into it.

She was far too nervous for such a thing at the moment. Hermione felt like a stupid school girl. When she dated Ron things we're just so fucked up that she wasn't able to feel like this. There were far more important things to worry about. After the war, and after they had broken up, she just simply stopped trying. She got lost in healer training and then she functionally became married to her job.

She was not one for bars, muggle or wizarding. And she quickly found out many people who seemed interested in her we're only because of her fame or because she was friends with Harry Potter. That left a rather bad taste in her mouth on the whole practice of dating.

But, as she watched her friends pair up, Hermione felt a longing to do the same. She was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. So, she tried dating well better term was having one night stands with muggle men. She even tried dating a few muggle women.As much as she and they wanted things to go further, they never could. Hermione was many things, but a liar was not one of them.

She couldn't tell them about magic unless she was sure she wanted to be with them, but she could not be sure she wanted to be with them unless she was honest with them. So, she just never bothered to call them back.

Hermione did not know what she doing at this small crowded cozy cafe on a Saturday morning. And she was just about ready to get up and leave when Draco walked in. Blonde hair curling from the light rain. She halted the urge to stand up and help him to her table and instead said, ”Draco, hey it’s Hermione, I am in the left far corner of the cafe at a booth.”

He said, ”please tap the table so I can find it easier”.

She did. Draco found her table with only a few hiccups. Mostly his long straight white cane getting tangled up in things. Which led to him cursing under his breath. Once he found the table he nearly ended up sitting in her lap. She knew it wasn't his fault and the truth was she didn't mind.

Hermione said, ”want to sit next to me or across from me?”

”Across from you, of course”,he muttered. ”I tried to sit in your lap, didn't I?”

She said, ”Yes?”

Draco muttered, ”Bloody hell, I am sorry, Hermione”. He then took his seat across from her. He harshly shoved his cane under the table at his feet.

Hermione said, “It’s no problem, Draco.”

The waiter came by and said, ”Sir have you read over our menu?”

Hermione went to point out Draco was blind, and could not do such a thing, but she bit her tongue. If this is how their whatever this was continued as it was, her tongue was going to be a bloody mess, by the end. Or maybe not.

Draco asked the waiter with a coolness not unexpected from the Malfoy heir, ”What are your specials today?”

The waiter rattled them off and Draco decided on a black coffee and a pumpkin spice muffin.

The muddy brown-haired waiter turned towards Hermione and said, ”What will you be having Miss?”

She said, ”I would like apple fritter and another coffee.”

The man nodded and went off to put their orders in. Within a few minutes, their food was in front of them and Draco seemed with simple ease to be about to be able to find it. Practiced comfort.

They ate in comfortable silence, she tucked her book back into her bag. The latest book was written by an author who had once been a great writer but was now seeming to fall flat with her opinions of transgender folks. Hermione wanted to give her one last chance, but even with her scattered mind before Draco had come, it seemed like a worthless book.

She wasn't someone to throw books into the rubbish bin, and Hermione would still keep the previous books she enjoyed, but this one was going into the bin.

Draco set his coffee mug aside and said, ”Well that was good.”

Hermione said, ”Yeah it was. How is the process with the guide dog thing going?”

Draco said, ”It’s going quite well, actually. I should know if I am accepted to the program in a few weeks.”

She said, ”that’s wonderful.”

He said, ”How have you been?”

Hermione sighed, ”Okay? I guess?Work is just well work. I love it. Don't get me wrong. It's just not easy. It was kind of taken over my life if that makes any sense. I don't get out much, honestly. I haven't been on an actual date in years. Not that I think this is a date unless it is then I think this is.”

Draco laughed, and Hermione felt as if her face was on fire.

She said, ” It'snot funny Malfoy.”

He said, ”So, it's back to Malfoy?”

Hermione said, ”You made fun of me.”

Draco said, ”I wasn't laughing at you, I laughed because I know that feeling quite well. And because of the fact Granger, I hope this was a date, but I also didn't want to get my hopes up.”

Hermione said, ”You wanted this to be a date?”

He said, ”Yeah”, and then scratched his neck.

She said, ”Then you should have asked me”.

Draco said, ”Can we make this a date Hermione? Since your no longer my what did they say you were? Case manager?”

Hermione said, ”Yes.”

Draco leaned over the table, his pale hand out to find her face, once he found it, he kissed her, and she kissed him back.

************************

Hermione watched with calm brown eyes, as her fiance Draco, walked with his new guide dog, Orion. The large black lab vaguely reminded her of Sirius in his dog form. Though looks was where the resemblance ended. Orion took his job seriously, his agile form took Draco exactly where he needed to go.

They seemed to thrive together, Draco was even considering trying to go back to work as an Auror with Harry’s support. It might only be desk work and other things that the higher-ups deemed safe. After the accident, he never believed that would be possible. He had given up on that part of his life.

Draco seemed to brighten more than he ever had before with the news. They got engaged rather quickly after they started dating, only three months, but unlike most people, they had known each other most of their life.

The accident was a rather odd situation looking back, he had been fighting a dark wizard and then got shoved back into a brick wall. It caused a TBI, which affected his vision.

When Draco halted the dog in front of her, he reached first down to pet the dog’s head before anything else. He said softly to the dog, “that’s my good boy”, and gave him an ear scratch.

Hermione said, “So do think he’s ready to go to work with you?”

He said, “Yeah I think he is, no issues going through Diagon Alley, and that is far more challenging than work will be.”

She said, “I am so proud of both of you.”

Draco said, “I wouldn’t be here without you Hermione. You pushed me to actually try. To not give up and become the person I once was.”

Hermione said, “Draco, you did those things yourself. You decided to the training you needed, you were the one who decided to put your whole heart into it, you were the one who decided to Orion, and you were the one who decided to put yourself out there to go back to work.”

He said, “Don’t sell yourself short.”

She said, “Don’t sell yourself short Draco.”

Draco said, “Maybe you have a point.” He reached out his hand to find her face, once he found it, then he kissed her lips, and she kissed him back.

A year later they got married, in a simple ceremony, with Orion sitting in his harness at Draco’s feet. They had become a little family in their own way.

And who would have thought it all started with the statement, “I would rather be dead.”

Sometimes people said that to Draco that they would rather be dead than blind. It bugged him to bits. Better dead than newly blind? Maybe. But, surely not someone who could navigate the city of London by himself with just a guide dog. Surely not the man who could read Braille on labels on elevators. Surely not the man who was married to Hermione Jean Malfoy. Surely not the man who was going to be a father in nine months.

Draco would rather be anything but dead at this very moment.


End file.
